Looking Like Nathaniel
by Dlvvanzor
Summary: It would be nice if there had been precedence, but no, nothing involving Nathanial was ever simple. Naturally I had to be the first djinni to ever, in the history of djinni, love a human. Oneshot, future fic. Bart POV. BartxNat.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Bartimaeus Trilogy.**

**A/N: Do you remember when, in the first book, Bartimaeus appeared at Ptolemy for the first time? He described him as "a boy I had loved." I understand that in the book it's meant platonically, but I've always thought it was a beautiful line. Thus, this fanfic.**

**Mentions of slash. If you don't know what that means, you probably won't enjoy this fanfic. :)**

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I groaned out loud when I felt the totally unwelcome tug on my essence, ripping me apart from the swirl of the rest of us in the Realm. It was like fishhooks attaching to every pore of my skin and dragging me away to a place I didn't even want to go. You never really get used to it, but it had been so long since I had last been summoned that I was even _less _used to it. Maybe I had been resting for centuries, but I was exactly no less tired today than I was the day Nathaniel...

Anyway, being the prompt, obedient djinni that I am and always have been, I appeared to the human who summoned me.

I swirled around as black smoke for a while as I tried to decide on a form to take. I was so tired. I was too old for this, and I wasn't getting any younger. Unfortunately, I wasn't going to be dying any time soon, either. I could be a huge monster. I could be something that was bleeding a lot. Maybe a puddle of slime?

A genius idea sparkled into my little brain and I landed, taking the form of a black-cloaked boy, his dark, straight hair slicked back with water, pale-skinned, shrewd-eyed and calculating. A boy I had loved. As Nathaniel, I stood and stared at the magician in front of me. Judging by the young man's skin tone and the general feeling of the area, we were in London. Just like Natty Boy.

The kid was 'bout his age, too. When I first met him, I mean. Man, does time ever fly.

"I am Bartimaeus," I said calmly, already crawling in my skin. I used Nathanial's best cold, brilliant, calm' voice, with what appeared to be much success. "I am Sakhr al-Jinni, N'gorso the Mighty, and the Serpent of Silver Plumes. I have rebuilt the walls of Uruk, Karnak, and Prague. I have spoken with Solomon. I have run with the buffalo fathers of the plains. I have watched over Old Zimbabwe till the stones fell and the jackals fed on its people. I have witnessed the heroic death of John Mandrake. I am Bartimaeus. I recognize no master."

The kid shook (this gave me some level of pride, but there was just no joy in terrifying human children anymore) in his silver jumpsuit; the unfortunate height of fashion nowadays, at least among wizards. In my humble opinion, he looked absurd. Spandex just clings in all the wrong places. The cone-shaped hat was especially over the top. Nathaniel would, quite frankly, have been appalled at this boy's clothing. Of course, Nathaniel's style was now exactly 1,437 years out of date. Things had changed. If he'd existed now, he probably would have worn exactly that.

Good thing he'd been born when he was. Dramatic black cloaks suited him much better than silver jumpsuits would have.

'Course, he probably would have made even a silver jumpsuit scary.

For dramatic effect, I summoned up a single, long, thin snake of black smoke, letting it coil around me, letting it wrap between my fingers as if it were solid, watching it. Nat had already looked like a vampire. Melodramatic flames and roaring simply weren't necessary.

I simply couldn't work up the energy to be as cocky as I wanted to be. It was the first time I had come down here since... you know... and especially being in England, hearing that accent again, somehow unchanged with the passing of so many generations of humans...

Well, it hurt. Just a little. I mean, he was just a human, after all.

So I took _his_ form and stood before my new master, none of the usual theatrics because I had finally perfected the most terrifying method of all: look like one of them, and add just a little black smoke. To this human, I appeared as ancient as Ptolemy had to Nathaniel. Imagine what he would have thought if I had appeared as _Ptolemy_.

"What is your charge?" I made 'Nathanial' ask in a low, chocolate, sexy-but-terrifying voice. The kid shook, trying and failing to hide his inexperience.

Reminded me of someone. I was so, so tired.

The kid didn't say anything, but I admit that for a moment I half-expected him to send me on some epic backstabbing quest, like Nathanial had the first time around. I almost welcomed it. Maybe I would be able to see a little bit of Nathaniel in this boy. Maybe this human would have that same angry, arrogant, genius spark in his eyes that I still couldn't get out of my head, so many hundreds of years later.

But this human's master (dressed in a _green_ jumpsuit which was somehow worse) was in an adjoining circle, nodding approvingly- this boy had no anger. We weren't in a bedroom- he wasn't more arrogant than any other magician. He hadn't summoned me alone- no razor sharp brilliance.

Normal. Disgustingly, exhaustingly normal.

"Good," the master said. "Now dismiss it."

The young apprentice obeyed, still terrified, and I left on the first tug. Soon I was back in the Realm I much preferred.

But, despite the perfect unity, despite the feeling of my essence going through a blender and dispersing into everyone else's, despite the feeling of thousands, _tens_ of thousands, of other consciousnesses suddenly knowing _exactly _what I was thinking and feeling except for the one thing that I had always held back from them... well, when it came down to it, I was exactly no less alone.

Because no other djinni had ever, _ever_ loved a human.

And _that_ was just... impossibly hard to explain to the 'rents.


End file.
